As we all know vegans don’t eat meat or any animals products. Thus, vegan found many substitutes that taste equally nice.
Let’s find out more about one of these substitutes: The so called aquafaba.
- Aquafaba is the viscous water in which legume seeds such as chickpeas have been cooked.
- Aquafaba has the ability to mimic functional properties of egg whites in cooking.
- This is why aquafaba can be used as a direct replacement for them in some cases.
- It can be used as a substistute for meringues and marshmallows.
- It is especially suitable for use by people who avoid eggs, such as vegans.
- Aquafaba is used as a replacement for eggs and egg white.
- Its composition of carbohydrates, proteins, and other soluble plant solids which have migrated from the seeds to the water during cooking gives it a wide spectrum of emulsifying, foaming, binding, gelatinizing and thickening properties.
- In general one medium egg white can be replaced with 30 millilitres (2 tablespoons) of aquafaba, or one medium whole egg with 45 ml (3 tbsp).
- The simplest way to obtain aquafaba is to decant the liquid from canned or boxed legumes such as white beans or chickpeas.
- It can be made by boiling, steaming, pressure cooking, or microwaving pulses in water.
- Sweet applications for aquafaba include meringues, macarons, nougat, icing, ice cream, fudge, and marshmallows.
- Savory applications include baked goods, dairy substitutes, mayonnaise, cheese substitutes, batters, and meat substitutes.
- Aquafaba is also recommended as a vegan substitute for egg white in preparing cocktails with a foamy “head”, particularly sour cocktails like the whiskey sour.
- Aquafaba contains about one tenth of the protein of egg whites by weight.
- The difference in protein content may enable those who cannot properly metabolize proteins (such as phenylketonuria) to consume foods which are normally egg-based.
- The lower protein content makes it unsuitable for applications which rely on egg protein for structure, such as angel food cakes.
- The best aquafaba appears to be from chickpeas and white beans such as the Navy bean.
- Other legumes such as peas, lentils, soy, kidney, and black beans can be used.
- It must be mentioned that their slightly different compositions may require more tinkering with the concentration to work well
- In December 2014, musician Joël Roessel found that water from canned beans can form foams much like protein isolates and flax mucilage do.
- Roessel shared his experiments on a blog and published recipes for floating island of Chaville, chocolate mousse, and meringue made from chickpea liquid to demonstrate its foaming capabilities.
- Around the same time, vegan food enthusiast Goose Wohlt discovered that the cooking liquid can replace egg white without the need for stabilizers.
- In March 2015 he published a recipe for egg-free meringue using only chickpea liquid and sugar.
- A few days later, a Facebook group was created to encourage development and popularize the egg substitute.
- The word aquafaba is from the Latin aqua (water) and faba (bean).
- Homemade aquafaba will keep in a Mason jar in the refrigerator for two to three days.
- Aquafaba can protect and strengthen fine hair.
- Chickpeas are healthy, and some of the nutrients transfer into the water. Protein and fiber don’t transfer over, but you can still benefit from trace amounts of: B vitamins, folate.
- Some people claib aquafaba is bad for health because the BPA/BPS chemicals from cans, hormones from pesticides, can also contain a lot of sodium from low-quality salt used during the production.
- Thus it is low in nutrients and has no added value to our diet.
Got anything to add?